Andrew Taylor - Bleeding Heart Square

Lydia glanced round the room. His overcoat was on the back of the door. She lifted it off and dropped the keys in the left-hand pocket.

‘I’m going to leave your overcoat on one of the hooks in the hall. Then I shall take the keys from your pocket. So if anyone asks, you’re in the clear. You happened to leave your coat in the hall, and the keys happened to be in the pocket. And somebody happened to come along and take them. But nothing is going to go wrong, is it? No one’s going to ask you anything.’

He raised his face to her. His eyes were puffy. ‘Mrs Langstone, it’s already gone wrong.’

Nipper followed her out of the room and ran down the hall towards the door to the cellar, towards the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Hurriedly she took out the keys, dropped them in her own pocket and hung up the overcoat. The door on the other side of the hall opened a crack. Mrs Renton looked out.

‘That dratted dog again,’ she said to Lydia. ‘I wish he wouldn’t bring it in the house.’

She shut the door. Serridge came into the hall, followed by Howlett.

‘Ah — Mrs Langstone.’ Serridge’s heavy features rearranged themselves into a smile that was the next best thing to avuncular. ‘And how did you enjoy the meeting this afternoon?’

She stared at him. He was probably unaware that she had seen him, and therefore he did not realize that she knew he had sent Marcus and his Blackshirts on a wild-goose chase for her sake. ‘I found it very interesting, thank you, Mr Serridge. But I had to leave halfway through.’

‘They certainly had a good turnout, ma’am,’ Mr Howlett said, bending to scratch Nipper. ‘Mind you, I don’t know how much use it all is. The world goes on turning, whatever we try and do about it.’

‘They get some rough types there, though,’ Serridge went on. ‘I hope you’re all right.’

Lydia nodded, smiling like an idiot, and said goodbye. Nipper tried to follow her outside. She shut the front door in his face, remembering as she did so the little dog Rory had seen in the photograph of a naked Amy Narton astride a bicycle. That was the reality, she thought, not this amiable old chap like Father Christmas in mufti: Serridge was a middle-aged man who had a taste for vulnerable girls without any clothes on, and preyed on elderly spinsters with more money than sense.

And if Nipper’s the same dog, does Howlett know where he came from? Are we all Serridge’s creatures in this house? Or his victims?

She ran across Bleeding Heart Square.

Marcus Langstone was alone, and that was something Rory had not been expecting. Langstone was cautious, though: he switched on the light, opened the door and then stood back.

Fisher and his men had left perhaps twenty minutes earlier. Langstone looked at Rory leaning against the wall near the table at the far end of the Ossuary. Rory felt sick in the pit of his stomach. But there was relief of a sort that the waiting was over.

Langstone slipped a bunch of keys into his pocket. A short rubber cosh was looped over his right wrist, swinging like a pendulum in a clock case. He was a big man, Rory thought, not just tall but surprisingly broad. His face looked so misleadingly wholesome — the pink and white complexion, the fair hair, the baby-blue eyes.

The cosh swung to and fro. Langstone didn’t speak. There was an element of calculation in all this. Rory felt an extra spurt of fear which mysteriously converted itself into something like anger. The man was being so bloody childish. This was how bullies behaved in the school changing room or the corner of the playground. Standing there in his uniform he looked more than ever like a sinister Boy Scout, his emotional and intellectual development doomed to remain for ever somewhere between thirteen and fourteen years old.

‘I hope you’ve come to let me out,’ Rory said. ‘And an apology would be nice too.’

Marcus actually raised an eyebrow — a single eyebrow, just as though he were a villain in an old-fashioned melodrama. He thwacked the cosh against the palm of his left hand. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘You can’t really think it’s a good idea to go around treating members of the public like this. Surely it’s bad for business?’

‘You’re not a member of the public. You’re a dirty little journalist and a lying cheat.’

‘For all you know I could be a dirty little journalist who supports Fascist principles.’

Langstone shrugged. The black shirt and dark trousers flattered his figure but there was a distinct thickening around his middle. ‘In my book, all journalists are dirty,’ he said. ‘It’s not a job for a gentleman, is it? But you’d be dirty whatever you were. And that’s why I’m going to teach you a lesson.’ He walked slowly towards Rory. ‘I’ve known about you for a long time. You live in Bleeding Heart Square. You’ve got the room on the ground floor on the left of the front door.’

‘You’re mistaken,’ Rory said. ‘I-’

‘You can’t lie your way out of this. I’ve seen you there.’ He added with an air of triumph, ‘You even admitted it to my colleague.’

Rory swallowed. ‘You’ve done more than see me, haven’t you? The other weekend — that was you, wasn’t it?’

Langstone smiled. ‘My people. Not me.’

‘Your tame Biff Boys?’

‘You wouldn’t have been able to get up off the ground if it had been me.’

‘And how are you going to explain this? You can’t hope to get away with what you’re doing.’

‘Why not?’ Marcus had stopped about three feet away from Rory. ‘Unfortunately we’ve had a great deal of trouble with left-wing agitators at our meetings. Communists, Jews, foreigners, people who have the morality of the gutter. They bring all sorts of weapons and try and stir up trouble. Bicycle chains, knuckledusters, knives — you name it, they’ve got it.’

‘Whereas you go in for rubber coshes?’

‘My mechanic advised me to buy one of these. Know what they call them, Mr Wentwood? The motorist’s friend.’

‘It’s an offensive weapon.’

‘Defensive, please. We have to do our best to cope with this wicked violence, don’t we? For the sake of the public, for the sake of democracy. We Fascists stand for free speech and free debate. We can’t let you people interfere with that. It just wouldn’t be right, would it? And of course you end up getting hurt. I’m about to act in self-defence, in case you were wondering, and later on there will be witnesses to confirm it. They will also confirm that you were armed.’ He smiled. ‘In point of fact I’m looking ahead: there aren’t any witnesses just at present. So you can squeal as loudly as you like.’

‘That’s the trouble with you lot,’ Rory said. ‘You start off thinking the end justifies the means. And then you don’t bother justifying anything at all. You just do what you bloody want.’

The last word came out like a bullet on a rush of air as Rory kicked Marcus’s left kneecap. Marcus shouted and lunged forward, his face contorted, and brought the cosh down in an overarm blow. Rory ducked to the left and the cosh hit him like a brick on his right arm, just below the shoulder.

An instant later, Marcus’s left fist caught him full on the mouth. Driven backwards, Rory fell against the table, the corner jabbing into the soft flesh between his ribcage and thigh. Marcus lashed out with his boots, aiming for Rory’s crotch.

Rory squirmed. A toecap thudded into his leg. Cold stone grated like sandpaper against his cheek. He curled himself up and tried to roll away from the kicks. He collided with a table leg. His mouth filled with liquid. He spat, and saw a fine red spray in front of his face. His left ankle exploded with a pain like an overwhelming flash of electricity. He screamed and wriggled farther under the table, scrabbling to escape the kicks and blows. He pushed himself into the corner where the two walls met.